Blogging about a blog.

I'll be good after this entry, I promise, hahaha.

So when I had logged in here in Multiply this morning, I noticed that our recent show's set designer had read my blog entry about the fiasco during the weekend. He, in turn, posted his own one-sided take on the issue even though he wasn't there the entire weekend. His entry is all in italics, while my own take is in bold letters.

Blog Title: 'Niki, don't waste your time trying to figure out the crazies. Just go on confusing them.'

Before we begin, i have to warn you, that you are about to read the most despicable events i have come to encounter in my years in the theater [and guys, this has nothing to do with that tililing from morayta].

In the process, i have discovered a new kind of vampire [see my vampire blog for further reading]:
'the dregs of the theater vampire' -this subspecies of vampire i have discovered are but non-talent commoners who think and behave like they have it all. One acting workshop or one second-rate production and they think they're god's gift to the theater. Their ego fills up the space where talent should be as they couldn't even hold a hangnail to the least qualified. They can't get in anywhere so they find their way into some unsuspecting theater producer's project and spread their doom there...
(-OK, first of all, who has given you the right to judge people like that? Non-talent ba kamo? Wag ka muna mag-comment if you don't know what you're talking about. So yeah, Theatre Arts ka in the Ateneo before you arrived in our school, pero that doesn't make you stand above everyone else. I may not know the people I've worked with in this production for that long. So they may not have the superior talent that you had expected. May passion sila, that's all that counts. We're not always after high-quality productions, even if the public expects us to do so. Ang alam ko is that all those people involved here had put out their heart and soul into this show dahil mahal nila ang ginagawa nila.)


And here's how i got to know them...
As some of you know, i have been working on this project that i shall call COLD COFFEE. (Now that's subtle.) Having designed the first run, i was glad to help out in the second one.
Now, i myself was at odds with the producers earlier due to some budgetary concerns regarding my sets, but what can i do but deal with it as best as i can for my goal was to get it performance ready. But i wasn't prepared for what was to come...
(-You claim that you don't mind that they have budgetary concerns... So why do you keep complaining to me that you haven't been paid by Repertory Philippines for your so-called talent?)
[now, having their sets for the first time, i was prepared for some compensation and space adjustment, but i was not prepared for what came next...]
-first, the acting was horrendous. It was amateurish and second rate that my pet iguana could do better
(-You think you and your iguana could do better? I've seen you act, and even your iguana could upstage you for your own horrendous acting. The cast may not be professional nor they have much acting experience, pero they do what they can and push themselves to do it.)
-the characters were inconsistent, the thread of their storytelling was in knots
-the choreography was abhoring, imagine one actor's song was done in this alternative rock style but he was dancing to it as that of a gay chorus boy for a bad noontime show.
(-You should know this, ahehe.)
-performances lacked truth and the actors never 'played the end'
-and having seen the first one, the new director just copied off 85% of the blocking and never really did anything new
-and by the end, i went like, "huh?"
(-We had done the same when we saw your set. Ano ba ang statement mo with all those stuff?)

But that doesn't end there...
-it's 2 days into first curtain, and the actors are more concerned about getting paid than improving their mediocre performance
(-That's what you think, kasi during that time, masyado kang obsessed with your set, which Ren had claimed took at least 3 days to dry, when it dried about a couple of hours after it was painted while we were in St Scho this past Wednesday. The actors were all over the theater working hard.)
-they're more concerned about being part of the problem that thinking of ways to solve it.
-having thought of it over and over, the show wasn't performance ready...and i wouldn't dare put my name on it.
(-None of us really have a problem with that, do we?)
-and in the school of theater i came from, there's such a thing as heirarchy and respect. Unfortunately, these non-talent commoners have not the decency to acknowledge that
(-In the school of theater I come from, malaking factor din ang respect, regardless of heirarchy. It's all about a matter of respecting naman talaga. As long as you treat that person as a real human being, walang problema.)
-so when the producers saw they were at the losing end, they decided to cancel the show as it was unfit to see first curtain
(-Ren was making all these excuses left and right ever since we laid eyes on her. She never knew when to tell the truth. Technical glitches and and audience of 300? Get real. Ren knew she didn't have the money from the start, that was her problem and she didn't know how to solve it. Unfit to see first curtain? It shows how much you don't trust the people you're working with. Which is fine by me because I never trusted you either.)
-even with that, they were still guaranteed payment by the producers though...even if in my book i wouldnt pay one bag of dog poop for their performance
(-Don't give promises you can't make, especially if there's a contract.)
-but these dregs went in upheaval and violently forced the producers to open the show
(-I wouldn't say violently. They spoke up what the producers needed to hear because she never listened.)
-and then the director showed her true colors, we learned how she backstabbed the producers and the playwright yet showed another face in their presence.
(-As this list goes on, it showed how much you are taking sides in this story. You're on that side because nasa kanila ang pera kuno. I do remember you telling me that you will never work for Sining Tanghalan again because they owe you money as well. Sino ang mukhang pera sa atin ngayon?)
-and by show day, counting 3 shows, they only filled-up less than ten percent of a thousand seater house.
(-Speaking for myself, I'm just content with performing, regardless of how many people are there in the audience.)
-with that expectation, the producers made sure that there would be money to pay them. In fact, a benefactor drafted a check to pay for it. However, it was a saturday and this particular bank was non-banking unlike the others. So they only had to wait a day more for monday
-after the shows, they began discussing the guaranteed pay, but the vampires would have none of it, and dragged the producers to the police station forcing them to cough out money when there's none.
(-Vampires talaga ang tawag mo no? Ang drama pa ng pagkwento. "Dragged the producers to the police station..." We weren't really forcing them to cough out money, we just need the concrete assurance that everyone followed the contract to the letter. We filled our end of the bargain, what about them? And bakit walang pera? The producers never knew how to handle the money all along. Nangutang pa sa iba't ibang tao and seemed to have no plan of paying them back. Amounting to almost half a million in debt? If you're her friend and you've been acting like such a dona, why don't you help her? Good luck!)
-and these vampires even violently took the producers' cellphones and read out our messages, begrudging us for speaking the truth that they are the most talent deprived batch of theater actors 'kuno' that we have ever seen, and the show wasn't fit to open.
(-Whose messages? So you do admit that you were part of them pala. What truth? Talent-deprived batch of theater actors "kuno"? I used to have so much respect for you as a friend, even if not as a business partner in any way. I knew all along how plastic you are.)
-and one of them went to mommy and cried because she read the message that she wasn't talented at all...so mommy calls my other friend the original playwright and screams at her like a palengkera would...que barbaridad!
(-She's another person who had to hear things she needed to hear. Another person who has no right to judge others for that. I thought I had respect for her as well, but I guess I thought wrong.)

Oh enough...
I for one am disgusted and do regret having even shared the room with these people. Poor friends of mine, not realizing what kind of people they took in. And so, i warn you, beware these vampires...
(-Niki de los Reyes-Torres... I am disgusted by you as well. During the last few times we've seen each other, I have had high respect for you as a person, I've treated you as nothing but a friend, pero if you want to play the plastic bitch, I won't stoop down to your level.)

[i'm posting this as a warning...and should you require their names, i would gladly provide them privately]

OK, that's enough. Moving on.

[edit]
Congratulations! You reached the bottom of this entry. You took time to read the entire thing, and if you have time, please refer to the two other links below for more information on this fiasco.

Apple's blog entry, elaborating on her take on what had happened since the whole thing began:
EXPERIENCE KO SA "KAPENG MALAMIG"

K's blog:
Help Us Catch These Swindlers